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A Timeline of the Social CRM Arms Race [INFOGRAPHIC]

In the past, large CRMs have been tentative about working social media into their product offerings. However, just in the last week, some of the largest players have made drastic moves toward making their CRMs more social.

Just over a week ago, Oracle purchased Vitrue, a social relationship management service. Salesforce.com quickly countered by purchasing Buddy Media, a social enterprise company. Not to be outdone, Oracle finalized terms for a second acquisition of Collective Intellect, a social intelligence company. In total, the past week has seen well over a billion dollars in social acquisitions.

The recent surge in acquisitions has finally brought a social CRM within reach. Let’s take a look at the acquisitions that have moved both companies to this point:

Many of the past year’s acquisitions have already been productized, but the most recent acquisitions will take some time to be fully integrated into each platform. As two of the largest CRMs, Oracle and salesforce.com are likely to set a trend for competitors like Microsoft Dynamics and SugarCRM. Expect to see several more acquisitions in the next few months.

Marketing automation solutions like Pardot have been building robust social integration into their products for years in anticipation of a more social CRM and sales process. In the near future, expect to have more impact and influence over your social networks than ever before .

We are the midst of a very exciting time for sales enablement technologies. What do you think of this recent string of acquisitions? Are you excited to see your CRM become more social? Let us know!